Unhurried pace a real pleasure

“People enjoy a very lazy life here,” says Vicky, the local guide showing us around Xiamen, a port city in south-eastern China once known as Amoy.

It’s the second time in as many days I’ve heard this characterisation of Xiamen, renowned as one of China’s most liveable cities and known for its mild climates and sandy beaches.

It’s already a popular holiday spot for domestic tourists, who are drawn to attractions such as the pretty, pedestrian-only island of Gulangyu — a former foreign enclave that’s now World Heritage listed.

The city is now tipped as an emerging destination for foreign visitors, variously heralded by international media as an appealing “hidden gem” and China’s “new capital of cool”.

It seems locals here wouldn’t be too concerned by such hyperbole, however. As Vicky puts it, “people in Xiamen enjoy their lives. They don’t need to compete so much.”

And, as I find over the course of a morning exploring the city with Vicky, this relatively unhurried pace and unassuming attitude makes it an ideal place to get a glimpse of local life and culture.

Camera IconA vendor at Eighth Seafood Market. Credit: Gemma Nisbet

FIRST STOP: SEAFOOD

Even the tamest, most touristy markets tend to be a good bet for vivid sights and scenes — and Xiamen’s Eighth Seafood Market is anything but sanitised. This is a place, after all, where you can buy everything from salt-baked quail eggs — a dainty local street food snack — to fat, live frogs, neatly bundled together in flimsy mesh bags.

But it’s the snakes that make the strongest impression. Vicky has mentioned some locals eat them — she’s not a fan — but it’s still a shock when I find myself pausing at a stall to take a closer look at something or other, only to realise I’m leaning across a cage containing a slender, dark serpent. On top rests a little bag containing some smaller, paler specimens. I don’t hang around to take a picture.

“People here love seafood,” Vicky tells us, and the Eighth Market, arranged along a narrow side street, is known for selling seafood fresh from the nearby harbour.

There are clams and little cockles, baskets of shiny squid, whole fish draped over ice, heavy conch shells, rocky mounds of un-shucked oysters, even the odd crayfish. A striking portion are still living: the crabs that twitch and scuttle, the shellfish that spit water at browsing shoppers, the eels slowly swimming in polystyrene containers.

It’s not all seafood, however, and other stalls are stocked with eggs and poultry, leafy mounds of green vegetables, even orchids and potted succulents.

Some of the market’s other sights are decidedly not for the squeamish: plucked whole chickens with their heads and feet still attached; the constituent parts of a butchered cow, offal heaped in a bowl.

Plenty, too, will be unfamiliar to the casual visitor.

I try to keep up with Vicky to follow her explanations, but there’s so much to see that I’m soon falling behind, dawdling to inspect black disks of dried seaweed, curious fish species and glossy hunks of roasted meat.

I pause again to watch a tortoise attempt an escape from a deep, metal basin.

It gets halfway out before losing its balance, and falls back to the bottom with a splash.

Camera IconTai chi lesson in Xiamen, China. Credit: Gemma Nisbet

SECOND STOP: TAI CHI

“One…two…three…four!”

The grey-haired woman in the flowing hot-pink silk suit counts us through the steps as she sweeps her left hand in a broad semi-circle, punches her right fist as she pivots, nimbly kicks her right foot to hip height, pivots and turns again.

Behind her, the rest of us — some of us many decades younger — struggle to emulate her graceful gestures. The contrast between our teacher’s example and our flailing limbs is so great, in fact, that we’re soon drawing the attentions of passersby, who stop to watch, clearly amused, and snap photos on their phones.

We’re on Xiamen’s seafront, in the shade of a sprawling banyan tree, for a little taste of tai chi.

Our teachers — a small band of locals — are champions of this ancient artform. And though they’ve made it look fairly effortless during their demonstration, we’ve quickly discovered it’s more complex than it might look.

Indeed, though the language barrier means our lesson focuses far more on performing the movements than understanding the philosophy that underlies them, the meditative quality of tai chi is immediately obvious. Our teachers are prime examples of its benefits: with an average age of 60, they’re all sufficiently agile and strong to put someone half that age — visiting travel writers included — to shame.

At the front of the class, our grey-haired teacher counts us through again — “one…two… three…four!” — as she repeats the sequence. She sweeps, punches and pivots. We swipe, poke and swivel. She kicks, steps and turns. We thrash, hop and spin. And as a wave of giggling breaks out in the group, our teacher grins broadly, and joins in.

Camera IconLearning about tea in Xiamen. Credit: Gemma Nisbet

THIRD STOP: TEA TIME

At the front of the room, the young woman pours water from a kettle over a ceramic cup of tea leaves, chatting to us in her language. “She’s saying you need to wash the tea,” Vicky translates. “It helps to release the scent of the tea, and to release the nutrition inside.”

Preparing a cup of Chinese tea is, according to this demonstration at a local tea shop, a rather complex affair. Some specialised equipment is required — such as a lidded cup known as a gaiwan — along with much swirling, straining and decanting of liquids.

“She’s showing you so many steps because it’s how to produce it precisely,” she says.

“But actually, if you are drinking tea in your home, you don’t need to go to so much trouble.”

The most important thing, we’re told, is to get the temperature of the hot water correct. This will depend on the type of tea you’re brewing: the ideal temperature for jasmine tea, for example, is around 80C, while other Chinese varieties — oolong, say, or fermented pu-er — can handle it a little hotter.

We try a whole range of teas, and touch on everything from how they’re grown to the correct way to hold our dainty cups (the technique differs for women and men).

But the brew that gets the biggest response is the one known to locals as “the tea of beauty”. “If you want to keep slim, you can drink this tea,” Vicky tells us. At the front of the room, a woman knocks her cup back with gusto and cries: “Keep it coming!”

Gemma Nisbet was a guest of Viking Ocean Cruises. They have not reviewed or approved this story.

My morning with Vicky was a shore excursion during an overnight visit to Xiamen with Viking Ocean Cruises. The line has a number of itineraries that include a visit to Xiamen, such as the 15-day Far East Discovery from Beijing to Hong Kong aboard the new 930-passenger ship Viking Orion. Departures in September and October, 2019 cost from $9095 per person twin share including all on-board dining including specialty restaurants, beer and wine with lunch and dinner, wi-fi, a shore excursion in each port and more.